North Country native featured on NBC's The Today Show

POMONA, N.J. - Dr. Joshua Duntley has gained national recognition for his work with youths in the field of crime scene investigation.

Duntley, a graduate of Saranac Central School and the State University of New York at Plattsburgh, was recently featured in an article by the Wall Street Journal and a television interview on NBC's The Today Show for his work as co-director of a CSI summer camp held at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. Speaking as an assistant professor in the criminal justice program and associated faculty in the psychology program, Duntley was first interviewed for an Aug. 3 piece in the Wall Street Journal written by reporter Nathan Koppel. Koppel was wanting to write a story on "unusual summer camps," said Duntley, and after searching the Internet, came across his the college's CSI camp.

"He chose to interview us because we had the best Web site," explained Duntley. "He also flew to Austin, Tx., to learn about an entrepreneurship camp that they run. The story ended up focusing primarily on our CSI camp."

The Stockton camp immersed high-schools in realistic mock-murder scenes to process evidence like bloody footprints and potential murder weapons. The Wall Street Journal story and the camp were so intriguing, Duntley was contacted by The Today Show producers the day after the article was printed.

"The producer from The Today Show who contacted me passed along my contact information to another producer, and enlisted the help of Amy Robach, who hosts the weekend Today Show, to conduct the interview," said Duntley. "Amy was a very nice person. But then, all of the people with whom I interacted at The Today Show were quite nice."

Producer Jennie Thompson joined Robach and a film crew at the camp, spending the better part of a day observing and talking with the campers and camp staff, said Duntley. The attention was something Duntley said greatly helped the camp and the college.

"Our camp Web site had something in the neighborhood of 30 unique hits on the day before the story aired on The Today Show," said Duntley. "On the day the story aired, the camp Web site received over 800 hits."

In the days following the story, the college continued to receive a much higher level of Web traffic, he added.

"The college's former Dean of graduate studies told me that The Today Show story about our CSI camp is the best national exposure the college has ever received," said Duntley.

The exposure wasn't just helpful for the program and the college, said Duntley. It was also helpful with fostering an interest in forensics and the criminal justice system in general, he said.

"The Today Show story helped to spread the word about our camp and perhaps encouraged interested students to begin pursuing their interests in CSI topics even before entering college," said Duntley. "I think that our CSI camp offers an opportunity for high school students to explore interests that they have had for some time."

(Editor's Note: Check out this story on our Web site, www.denpubs.com, for a link to Duntley's interviews on The Today Show and in the Wall Street Journal.)